Their inspiring stories of restoring the grid and returning electric service are told in my new book “Heroes of the Storms.” You can read it for free. It’s in several digital formats at fortnightly.com.
You can read about heroes at Con Edison, Dominion Energy, Florida Power & Light, Fortis, ITC Holdings, Oncor, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, Southern Company, Tampa Electric, and many public power and cooperative utilities too.
An excerpt from the book’s introduction:
“… Our exceptional dependence on electricity together with its vulnerability is a repeated theme in dystopian films. Alien invaders, with the advantage of their advanced intelligence of course, know to take out our electricity first.
It’s this peculiar combination of electricity’s characteristics, and how we think about electricity, and how we don’t think about it, that makes it unique. Consider the celebration and adulation that surrounds the restoration of electric service. The courageous linemen climbing poles in our neighborhoods, restringing our connections to the larger grid, become instant heroes for a time.
Alas, soon they too are forgotten, as is the way with electricity’s value, as are all those other heroes behind the scenes who labor throughout the year to lessen the likelihood that restorations of electric service will be required. As well as to lessen the ramifications when restorations are required – notwithstanding the ferocity of the attacks on power lines by nature and man.”